When I Return to the Clubroom
by HayashiOkami
Summary: When I return to the clubroom, of course Akashi is always playing dead. In a strange turn of events, before the Generation of Miracles was hailed as such, the five teammates are forced to deal with the conundrum that is their captain and his strange obsession with scaring them half to death. Based off a Nico Nico Douga song.


_**When I Return to the Clubroom**_

_When I return to the clubroom, of course Akashi is always playing dead._

_In a strange turn of events, before the Generation of Miracles was hailed as such, the five teammates are forced to deal with the conundrum that is their captain and his strange obsession with scaring them half to death._

It might not seem like it, but I'm actually basing this whole weird premise off of a song I found on youtube (and nico nico douga). I can't seem to find it anywhere else, and I'm pretty sure it's called "When I Return to the Clubroom" or something similar. My Japanese in terms of reading sucks and I can't understand the lyrics too well; they're too muddled. But, this is what I got of it (including the translated first line "_When I return to the clubroom, of course Akashi is always playing dead__"_, which I translated myself).

* * *

I.

The first time it happened, they all nearly had a heart attack.

After practice one day (it was a Tuesday, actually; who could ever forget a day like that?), their captain had headed back to the clubroom before the others like usual. No one ever questioned his actions as a rule, but they also knew that as captain, he often had additional responsibilities.

They weren't filthy enough to warrant a quick shower, so they had planned on grabbing their bags and changing before heading home. It was a Tuesday and exams began next week, so even the most devoted of any sports players were no longer staying after for extra practice.

Kise was mumbling about a photo shoot he had to attend the next day, even though he would be exhausted from practice and still had to cram for exams. Not that anyone in particular was listening to him complain; not that anyone tended to listen to him ramble on a normal basis, anyways.

It was he who opened the door eagerly, despite his grumbling just seconds before. They didn't notice that anything was amiss at first, because their eyes had been focused on the rows of lockers along the wall and not on the desk where their captain should have been. And certainly, the floor was not where their gazes automatically fell.

Kuroko (for all of his indifference) reacted first. Anyone who didn't know him, who didn't play basketball with him (because face it, he was practically invisible even on the court, let alone in class), might not have been able to tell that anything was wrong. It was the small, strangled sound that caught their attention and drew their sights towards him.

His eyes had widened imperceptibly and Kise supposed that Aomine was the first to trace the path of his vision down to the floor. They all followed suit, eyes landing on the body of their small captain laying on his stomach, and on the silver knife gleaming in the bright fluorescent lighting above.

Blood was splattered along its length, seeping from the white of the Teiko uniform, pooling on the floor near his head and outstretched arm.

"Akashi?!" they all exclaimed, or some variant of the name. After that initial surprise, the standstill where their minds struggled to decide whether or not this was real, their hearts began to palpitate in their chests, frantic thoughts streaming through their minds without a filter.

No one could have snuck in here and killed him so quietly, could they? Their captain wouldn't have gone down without a fight, but that was the scene that was painted before them. It wasn't as if basketball was the loudest sport around (that honor probably belonged to the kendo team, who could be heard halfway across the campus) and the clubroom was hardly a mile away from the gymnasium.

What reason would anyone have to kill him? They were a talented team, yes, but there were better ways of beating them than murder! Maybe Akashi was a cruel, frighting guy sometimes (a lot of the time, actually), but still…

Then: it must have been someone in the club! There were over a hundred members in it, after all, and no one else would have been able to sneak in here and slip out just as quietly!

A quiet chuckle from their fallen captain's direction made all of their heads snap back to the body before them, which was…strangely enough, quivering. It took one long, confused moment for them to realize that no one else was in the room and for some insane reason, their captain had duped them all.

"_W-What the hell?!_"

"_EEEEEH?_"

They erupted into angry questions induced purely from the shock of the situation, faces contorted dubiously as they watched their captain's small shoulders shake with laughter. All matters of respect flew out the metaphorical window for the moment; Aomine looked like he wanted to throttle Akashi. He would never attempt it, of course, but he _was _pretty furious.

"What the hell? Don't _do _that! We thought you were really dead! Why're you laughing? It isn't funny!" Aomine fumed.

"Is there a reason why Akashi-kun was playing dead?" Kuroko asked sensibly, his voice even and controlled as normal. His eyes had returned to normal, as well, his usual apathetic gaze replacing the surprise that had overcome even the most stoic of them all.

The captain didn't respond as he slowly rose from the floor, chuckling at his teammates' winces and fixed stares at the knife supposedly planted in his back. With his clean sleeve he wiped a streak of blood from his cheek, leaving behind a faint reddish streak. Kise had no idea where he had gotten the fake blood from.

"Now I know how you would all react if something _did _happen to me. But, you should already have known that nothing would have occurred in the first place. You're all free to go home while I clean this up."

Even Kise, as flighty as he was most of the time, had a strong feeling that their leader wasn't telling the entire truth. No one was willing to call him out for it, not at the risk of doubling or tripling their training menus right before exam week. Grudgingly, they made their way into the clubroom, bypassing the puddle of blood. They were hardly into the mood to question it.

If they just forgot about this strange incident, then it would be alright. Their captain was a little eccentric and took things to the extreme sometimes, like when he vowed to quit the team if they lost their first competition against a rival school. Since they were all teammates, they just had to learn to deal with his whims. Each of them also had his own quirks that the rest had to learn to live with, too.

After the second and third times it happened, it became harder and harder to uphold that mantra and look the other way. Eventually, though, as all things went, they got used to walking into the clubroom and finding their captain sprawled on the floor in a puddle of blood.

Middle school was already shaping up to be a three long, eventful years.

II.

When Kise opened the door to the clubroom and stepped inside, a brief, initial instance of surprise flickered across his face. No matter how many times he saw it, he was always caught a little off guard. He might have known that it wasn't real, but walking in to find your teammate on the floor in a puddle of blood with a knife stuck in his back would never be a completely normal sight.

His features softened as he stepped inside, fondly morphing into a soundless, breathless laugh as he recalled the first time they discovered their captain like this. It had happened many times after that, but for some reason it was Kise who found him playing dead more often than the others. He supposed that it was only Aomine who was still somewhat bothered by it.

Smiling, he closed the door behind him and walked up to Akashi's prone body. He wasn't sure if any of the other members of the basketball club knew about the captain's strange hobby, but figured that he shouldn't be the one to expose it. After all, he had already gotten in trouble with the others today for his slow reaction time during practice. It wasn't his fault that he sometimes looked in the opposite direction for too long, concentrating on a play he might copy later.

Kise lowered himself into a crouch, resting one arm on his knees as the other reached out to rustle the mess of red hair that belonged to his captain. It had taken him a while to feel comfortable enough with the other boy to do this, but he was pleasantly surprised when he found out that Akashi didn't mind. So long as they were alone, or relatively alone, he allowed it.

"Heh, I already know this one's a fake, Akashicchi," he said with a light chuckle and another ruffle of that nearly blood red hair before he withdrew his hand.

Without making a sound, still almost lifeless in his lack of movement, Akashi's lips slowly turned upwards in a small smile. Kise could say almost for certain that he would never fully comprehend those smiles or the urges that drove his teammate to play dead every now and again. It was a complete conundrum, but he also found that he was surprisingly content not knowing the answer.

Maybe, in fact, he _didn't _want to know it.

"Ah, so what brings you here, Ryouta?" Akashi asked it so _normally_, as if Kise had not just walked in to find him with a knife protruding from his back. The boy began to sit up, heedless of the blade (that he supposed had to be fake, although he didn't quite understand how it worked). The quirky smile was the only indication besides the bloody mess that Akashi was fooling around.

"Oh, I'm just here to get some spare basketballs. Shooting practice, you know. Midorimacchi's already lecturing us about how there's more value in shooting long range than things like dunking," Kise answered good-naturally.

For the most part, they had learnt that playing along with their captain's whims was the safest course of action. Whenever Aomine made a fuss about it, Akashi ignored his comments, but no one was willing to push him farther. Akashi really was the most unpredictable of the group, sometimes.

"That's good; don't forget to clean up after you're done," Akashi reminded him as he reached behind him to retrieve the knife. A towel was on the bench beside him to clean up the fake blood with. Kise also wondered where he got that blood from, but as always didn't voice his opinion.

"I'd better go back, before they start getting mad at me again," he said with a smile and a small wave. He got up, went over to the wired metal container that held the spare basketballs, and backed out of the clubroom.

He wouldn't ask questions, and would just move on as always.

III.

In the days after the latest junior high school basketball tournament, their practice schedules returned to normal and there weren't any pressing exams to study for. Falling back into their everyday routine, the team stopped by the convenience store after school when they had the money to buy whatever small snacks they favored.

In Murasakibara's case, that probably amounted to quite a bit of money every week. He was never without his snacks, except during practice when it was a bit impractical to continue eating. Even the teachers seemed to have given up trying to stop him.

As summer neared, they sometimes bought ice cream or ice pops, and sometimes got their usual. Kise didn't know how he forgot, but it completely slipped his mind that Akashi hadn't pulled another of his stints in quite a while; the last time was over a week before the tournament. Their school had come out on top, as always, and he remembered going out to dinner afterwards with sore muscles and laughing teammates.

It didn't help that Midorima had discovered him the last time, so Kise almost screamed in shock when he opened the clubroom door one day and found the redhead slumped over a bench, the feathered tip of an arrow protruding from the side of his head.

"Akashicchi! Are you okay?" he exclaimed, his voice rising to an uncomfortably high pitch as he rushed into the room. Messy rivulets of blood ran down the length of the bench's ridges. A much darker shade of red streaked the captain's hair. It was the lifeless slump of his body and limbs that alarmed Kise, and his stillness even after his name was called and Kise had rushed over to the bench.

The sensible part of him reassured him that Akashi was only playing dead again, but his heart was pressing painfully against the inside of his chest. It felt like he had just run for miles around the track nonstop and been forced to do a regiment of push ups and sit ups (which Akashi had made him do on occasion) afterwards.

The silence was probably a new tactic to scare him, he thought nervously as he tentatively touched his teammate's shoulder. The Teiko uniform was still a clean and pristine white and he wondered briefly how Akashi managed to wash the fake blood from the jacket each time he "stabbed" himself.

He ended up grasping the redhead's shoulder a little harder than was necessary with his larger hand, resulting in a small, barely perceptible flinch. With a huge, gratified sigh of relief, he withdrew apologetically and sat back on his heels. He felt a bit silly for having been tricked again and pointedly averted his gaze from the arrow protruding from Akashi's head.

He didn't really need to know how it worked.

"Did I scare Ryouta again?" his captain chuckled lightly. For an eerie moment he didn't move and his voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Soon after he shifted, lifting his head and motioning for Kise to grab the towel draped over the desk. He kept his head poised over the bench to avoid dripping blood on his uniform.

"Ahaha, I wish Akashicchi would stop doing that. You scare everyone half to death every time you think of a new one," Kise laughed nervously. He didn't exactly want to be the one to finally make their captain snap, but this hobby of his was so bizarre that they all wished he would answer their questions or grow bored with it.

Kise slipped the towel underneath Akashi's head, gently smoothing out his hair to rub off as much of the fake blood as possible. He avoided the arrow, still perplexed as to how it even worked, and wiped the bench the best he could when the other boy had gotten up. He stretched his back out with a groan, rolling his shoulders a few times to work out the kinks.

"You should find me a bit earlier next time," he commented offhandedly as he stood and went over to his locker. After rifling through his belongings for a moment, he headed towards the showers in the back, leaving the blond to clean the mess he left behind. When Kise lifted his head to see him go, he noticed that he had removed the feathered arrow.

He thought about telling the others of their captain's new arsenal, but was then reminded of all the times they poked fun at him and yelled at him both on and off the court. _They'll survive,_ he thought with a wry smile as he went to get a bucket of water to wash the bench off.

In retrospect, he probably should have given them a hint. It would have saved him a lot more grief later on.

IV.

This was the first time that Kise laughed when he walked into the clubroom to find Akashi playing dead.

He didn't think their captain would go as far as dressing up in battle fatigues for his little act, nor did he ever imagine that Akashi would find a fake gun to purchase as well.

With a small chuckle, he immediately headed over to the desk, where the clean towel was neatly folded up on the chair. Akashi was leaning against the row of lockers, donned in green battle fatigues with a small flag of Japan stitched onto the sleeve. In one blood-streaked hand was a dark, metallic rifle that rested against his shoulder like a samurai of old clutching his sword in sleep.

Fake blood stained the front of his uniform and was smeared across the lockers behind him, the dark red dripping down the doors. Kise walked over with the towel and bent at his waist. He tilted his head to try and get a look at Akashi's obscured face, lowered as if he was immensely tired and fatigued long before he died.

As he brought a hand up to ruffle the captain's hair, he caught a glimpse of a familiar smile.

"Time to wake up," Kise called, removing his hand. Akashi looked up and set the fake rifle aside, the prop rattling lightly against the floor. "You decided to go all out, huh?"

"I always 'go all out', as you put it," Akashi retorted simply, and just as simply, Kise shut up and didn't ask any further questions. "It always seems to be enough to scare you, at any rate."

He huffed and pouted with his back turned to the shorter boy. Sometimes being around Akashi reminded him of speaking to an adult. He always had to stop a moment and remember that in terms of age, _Kise _was actually older than them all. Even if Murasakibara was the tallest and Akashi the most intimidating, and Kise acted like he was a hyperactive grade schooler instead of a fourteen year old middle school student.

He didn't really think about it that often, perhaps because it didn't really matter in the long run. Kise acted immature sometimes (well, most of the time, off the court) and Akashi played dead sometimes. There was no need to make things more complicated than they appeared…

…right?

Even so, they had speculated about why Akashi liked to play dead on numerous occasions, when the captain was far away in a different part of the campus. It was too curious for them not to wonder every now and again.

Akashi wasn't suicidal. He wasn't serious about that part. They came to that conclusion immediately, barely stopping to question it. It didn't leave them much else to work with, though. Perhaps more than the rest of the team knew themselves, Akashi was the one who understood that they all cared for each other, even if they didn't always act the part. They valued him as a friend and as a fellow teammate, as well.

"Why…why does Akashicchi do this kind of thing?" Kise said, biting his lip as he was scrubbing at the lockers with the wet towel and a bucket of water at his side. The words slipped from his mouth before he was knew that he was saying anything at all, and he couldn't take it back now, even if he regretted it. He didn't want to sound annoying or persistent, but it was something he really wanted to know.

He wondered if he should have left the -cchi off. People always thought he was childish and immature for insisting on using it.

"I think…" Akashi said, picking his words carefully, "that Ryouta, more than anyone else, would know the answer. I also know that Ryouta can be a very oblivious person sometimes, and that if he thinks hard enough, he will figure it out."

Kise puffed his cheeks out indignantly, not that Akashi could see him. He tried not to disregard his captain's words, tried to figure out what he meant. In the meantime, he had already finished cleaning the locker and floor and emptied the bucket of pinkish colored water. He handed the towel over to Akashi to clean it in whatever way got it pristine white again.

After he had gone home, eaten dinner, done his homework and studied, he still could not figure out what it was that he and Akashi shared in common.

He didn't scare people half to death to find out whether or not they would care if he died. He was pretty sure that Akashi had their reactions figured out before they even found him, anyways. Sometimes, Akashi knew a person better than that person knew himself, even outside of basketball.

But still…it was often other people who made Kise cry, not the other way around. So in the end, he really couldn't figure it out after all.

He curled up on his side that night and burrowed into the thin covers, trying to chase away images of knives and arrows protruding from their captain's body. Even though it was still warm during this time of the year, he felt a little chilled.

V.

He had to help clean up after Akashi's messes a few more times before he finally figured it out. Of all the people to make him realize what the redhead meant, it had been Aomine.

It was after he had lost yet another one-on-one match and they were waiting outside the convenience store for Kuroko. Midorima was staying after a bit to practice more of his insane shooting and he wasn't sure where Murasakibara went. Akashi had some administrative business to take care of as captain. He was sure that Momoi was busy looking up data for the next competition.

He had been whining about never being good enough to beat Aomine, although he was somewhat smiling as he did so. Almost as jokingly, Aomine had raged, "Geez, your whining is so annoying. Stop it already. What are you, five?"

"Well, you're grumpy whenever you aren't playing basketball." Kise laughed it off as he always did, because he couldn't do much else and it didn't bother him much.

He still didn't realize it immediately, of course, because that was just the nature of things like this. It was a simple, teasing conversation that the two had had numerous times before, in many different contexts. Everyone on the team, though, poked fun at him for acting like a child, or maybe they just treated him like one sometimes because he allowed them to and he was the most inexperienced on the team.

It was probably as pointless to ask Kise why he acted childish as it was to ask Kuroko why he was invisible and preferred it that way. Even if they were asked, they probably wouldn't have a straightforward answer, maybe because they didn't know why, themselves.

People were like that by nature; they didn't always realize even the most obvious things about themselves, when everyone around them already knew the answer. And when Kise realized it, he didn't shout out of joy or relief of finally figuring it out. He had been in bed, trying to fall asleep, and was staring at the ceiling when it came to him.

He found that he couldn't have said anything even if he wanted to. It was something he didn't really want to admit about himself, perhaps something he had known all along. But this was how he had acted for years. It was part of his personality, and so he had never wondered _why_ like strangers could.

The next time he found Akashi playing dead, he indulged the boy and stopped asking him why he did the things he did.

That didn't mean Kise stopped complaining, though.

"You always make such a mess…and I'm always the one who has to clean it…" Kise whined with exaggerated despair as he shifted his weight to put more strength into mopping up the floor. Akashi had gone back to the knife trick again, so that meant the floor was saturated in red where he had decided to collapse for the day.

The bucket of water was tinted a pinkish red again. Akashi was holding his Teiko uniform in his hands, the bundle folded over with a splotch of blood dirtying the white.

The boy sitting on the bench next to him laughed genuinely, something that Kise wouldn't have been able to imagine him doing if he had not cleaned up so many of these messes, if he had never accepted his quirks. Of course, on Akashi, a smile wasn't something that was exactly beautiful. His features weren't as "pretty" as Kise's for him to appear like that. He was probably too accustomed towards Akashi's frightening smiles to clearly separate the two.

But to Kise, that genuine, contented smile of his was much better than a picture perfect fake. It was something that everyone in the team was capable of, even if they didn't often express it. He'd seen it in Aomine, although it was happening far less often, and he had seen it in Kuroko if he looked hard enough. Midorima, too, had his moments. It had only been the last two members of the team who Kise had never seen express themselves like that.

"You figured it out, I assume?" Akashi said. To Kise's surprise, his eyes weren't narrowed in their usual calculating manner. He still seemed rather carefree, although his arms had lowered his uniform to his lap.

"Ahaha, yeah…I did." Kise flashed him a strained smile and concentrated on cleaning up the rest of this mess.

* * *

- I am so sorry I am horrible at romance and writing canon characters. I just wanted to write this to promote the song, since I seem to take a liking to weird things like it. This will have one more chapter, with the conclusion and remaining scenes.

- Link (Remove spaces): www . youtube watch? v = yR2BxtVbnqw


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